Use The Relatable Expert Hook to Create Your Next Helpful Reel

When you create content you’re passionate about, your audience feels it, and that authenticity leads to better engagement and faster growth for your brand. Today, we’re talking about my tried and true R.E.P. hook formula: Relatable, Expertise, and Personal. We’ll discuss how to infuse these elements into your reels, using relatable words, recognizable brands or phrases, and personal storytelling to create effortless, trust-building content. I also share tips on structuring your hooks on screen, demoing in your videos for maximum impact, and using your own expertise without overthinking it.

In this episode we’ll be covering:

• What it really means for your Instagram content to go viral.
• How to craft your on screen hooks using the R.E.P. formula: Relatable, Expertise, and Personal.
• Overcoming content creation overwhelm by focusing on what truly excites you.
• Real-life example from a client who had a reel go viral using this exact formula.
• Tips for integrating personal stories and professional expertise to build trust and relatability.
• Examples of effective hooks for different industries like nutrition, fitness, and design.

Links to reels in this episode:

• The REP Reel

Other episodes you might have missed:

• Episode 051: Start Talking About Yourself in Your Content
• Episode 054: Is There Enough “You” In Your Content?
• Episode 059: Are You Talking About What You Love?
• Episode 060: Nail Your Short Form Videos with This Simple Formula

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Transcript

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:05]:
I am your host, Shannon McKinstrie. Welcome to Good Content. The podcast where I remove the never ending content creation guesswork and overwhelm, so that you can actually enjoy being on social media again and growing your business with what has always worked, good content. So remember a couple weeks ago when we talked about are you actually sharing content you love and are excited about because your audience can feel it. If you're not excited, we aren't excited. Because I know a lot of people have been told niche down or only share this type of content. Don't share that. As I always say, there are no rules.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:38]:
It's about what works for you. It's what lights you up. We are here to follow people's journeys, learn from each other, laugh with each other, get to know each other. Right? So with all that said, I did promise you I would I would come back with hooks for you after you kinda really wrote down, like, what it is that you're passionate about and what you wanna talk about and what is it something that you can never shut up about. If someone brings it up, you're like, oh, la la. And it's so funny because I've seen a lot of people pivot over the years, right? Because whatever it is that they were talking about or whatever they first started showing up on social media and talking about, they're like, I'm actually bored. And they totally pivot and it's really fun to see. So I've always talked social media and marketing because that's what I am passionate about.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:17]:
If I tried to talk something else, you guys would be like, what you can tell is just not in me. Right? So with that said, and I gave if you didn't listen to that episode, it was a couple weeks ago and I shared a few reels with you guys where you could really see even though it was educational content, right, where we know not all content needs to be helpful and educational. This type of content from these creators, you could tell, like, they really wanna share this travel tip or they really want to share that recipe. Right? It's like they are so excited to hit post and that's how I want you to feel because you're gonna have a lot more fun showing up and you're gonna have a lot more fun growing and you'll grow faster. You'll connect faster. People will feel that. So with all that said, I started really thinking about it because one of my clients actually did go viral recently, and she kinda took a little bit of a hiatus for a while because she just had a baby and, you know, that post baby fog. It's a lot.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:06]:
Right? And she's got two under two. And so we're kinda like, I was like, what is it that you content can't be hard for her. She's got two kids, two small kids running her business. Right? Trying to fill her coaching programs. She's, a nutritionist. Fun fact, she's my nutritionist, and she's helped me in so many ways. Anyway, so I absolutely love her and it's so fun to continue to work with her and that she's so you know, she's gone viral several times with content. But it been a while since we had one really go crazy.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:34]:
We've we've seen, like, steady whatever. And I'm like, girl, we need to make this so easy. And again, it's something that, like, is going on in your life right now that is very easy for you to record. And like I always say, with the helpful educational content, it needs to come from it has to have a personal element so that we believe it and that it's trustworthy and then it's casual and fun. So I know when I do a reel and I include a hook, like here's how I edit my reels as a social media strategist. Who's also a lazy content creator. Right? Here's how I do this, that sort of thing. Right? So I was like, what are you eating right now? Like, what is your go to snack right now? Because I know for me, following a nutritionist, I'm obviously her target market too.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:18]:
So I was like, I wanna know what you are filling your cart with. And she loves experiments. I was like, cool. This will be fun. Let's do it this way. And we're gonna do it as the way I've we've done it. We've gone viral with her this way so many times. The smoothie that helped her client lose 20 pounds, three ingredients, right? Or whatever it is, like you want to add something, not just here's a smoothie recipe.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:40]:
Boring. Right? It's like this is the smoothie recipe that helped her clients. So right away, it's establishing expertise. It's putting something personal in it. And it's relatable because if the person wants to lose 20 pounds, that's their goal. They relate to that hook immediately. So when I really study all these hooks that do so well for my clients and almost every time we do this structure, it goes viral. I'm like, why do we do? Why reinvent the reel? Right? So I wanna share it with you.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:03]:
So I again, this is not the only type of content to create. This is not the only way to structure your reels, but this is a surefire bet. They're like, it will help you get views. I call it now r e p. So I was like, I need to come up with a phrase for this so so people know how to really nail it. Right? You guys know I love my POV hooks. You know, I love did you know that, like, those simple on screen hooks? There's two ways to do it. This is the hook on the screen.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:26]:
So in other words, your anchor hook, your title hook, whatever you wanna call it. It's the it's the thing that sticks on the screen, right? When they see the reel. So they immediately know am I interested or not. And this is under the helpful category of my four H's, but the R means relatable. E means expertise, p is personal. So you wanna add in those three elements, something that they can relate to. Now I wanna preface this because this is where I don't want it to get tricky. Relatable could be a brand they already know, Nike, Amazon, Old Navy.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:57]:
Right? Trader Joe's. Look, it's a brand they recognize. Okay? It could also be a phrase. There's little phrases, you know, your people. Right? In that word bank you've been working on. Me, one of my phrases that my people relate to is 200 view jail. Okay. So something like that, but they relate to.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:13]:
So it's either a word, a phrase, or an identifier, something that they go, that's me or I'm interested. Numbers are great. Relatable location is the other. Okay. So again, relatable for her was twenty pounds, ten pounds, whatever that is. They go, that's my goal too. I relate to this hook. Location.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:30]:
So great for my hyper local people, local bloggers, realtors, best cozy coffee shop in Washington state from a coffee connoisseur. Like, that's the flow. It gives the expertise. So it says something about why they should believe you. And what I do sometimes, I don't even say, like, from a social media strategist, I'll just be like my client. My client says that's my expertise is I have a client. I have a customer, whatever it is. So that's another way you can do it because I don't want you to overthink this.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:56]:
So that's relatable. Right? We got relatable covered for expert. This is where people get thrown for a loop. I noticed in the comments on my reel when I talked about this and they were like, well, I'm not an expert. I'm like, what is your title? So if you can't think expert, what's your title? Bookworm, mom of two, type b business owner. Right? What's a title that just says why you're reputable? Why they should wanna hear again, 200 pounds down? That could be your title. If you don't want it, you could just say a busy mom who's a 7 figure business owner. That's your title.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:26]:
It it you don't have to say business coach, realtor, shop owner, cop you know, just you'd say 7 figure business owner. So expert is also does not have to actually mean your title. Just like relatable doesn't actually have to mean something deep. It's just the word Amazon relatable because they attach to it. It's anything a word, phrase, etcetera, that they can attach to. So So if you're struggling with that, e, expert or title, something that makes them go, yes, I believe you. And then p, personal. So what here's what Katie's said that went viral for her.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:59]:
Now again, I do wanna preface this. I think when people hear viral, they hear I talked about this last week. They're they hear, oh, then she must have gotten 7,000,000 views. No viral just means the way there's no technical for it. But even if you look it up, if you ask chat gpt, it's like any content that just gets more views than what you normally get. So I usually look at it as, like, if you normally get 50,000 views on a reel, if you're over 500,000, like, that's like, you know, if you quadruple plus your normal standard views, that's viral. So if you have a thousand followers, but you get 10,000 views and you normally get 500 views, like, that's viral for you. It went beyond what you typically get.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:39]:
So hers got over 500,000 views and it's still going because it was at 400, I think, 50,000 a couple days ago. She's gotten over a thousand new followers. She's had almost 4,000 shares. Okay. This is what's so fascinating to me. 4,200 likes, 3,700 shares. So almost likes and shares are almost the same. That's crazy.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:58]:
So this is what her hook said, and it's her actually doing the thing. You guys know how I'm always saying, make sure in your video you're demoing if possible. It's not necessary. You can have a pretty quote with a waterfall. Right? But if you're giving a tip especially or you're saying POV, you're an author who like, maybe in the video show you writing a book. Right? Like, you try to make it so they know you're in you know, the video tells a bit of the story. Okay. So she's demoing.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:25]:
She's eating the snack and the hook is it's the r e p. Ready? My current couch snack, and we came up with that together because we were like, we need, like, what do we all say now? Couch rotting. Right? Like, that's like a popular saying in culture. So I was like, we gotta do something about couch. So current couch snack as a nutritionist and busy mom underneath in a smaller print as like a little subtitle, fifteen weeks postpartum. So if someone's postpartum, they're gonna relate to that phrase. If someone loves to eat snacks on their couch and rot, they're gonna relate to couch rot. You see what I mean? So those are just relatable words that she used.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:00]:
And then her expertise, she dropped that she's a nutritionist and something personal, busy mom, and she also added in fifteen weeks postpartum. So if someone's postpartum and wants to get their nutrition up, they see right away she's a nutritionist, she's whatever. Right? And it shows the snack, so it's already something they desire. And then she takes them through, which I like to call the book reel. So that hook was about two and a half, three seconds, and then it shows her step by step making it. So like I always love to tell people, especially when if you are in food, interior design, things like that, we love it before and after, but a one formula I love is when you actually show the after and then the process, because you immediately grab them with that desired feeling. Right? So she did it perfectly. And then it shows Greek yogurt real quick.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:42]:
One second, second clip, the protein powder, third clip, the peanut butter. Right. And she just stirs. It was genius. And she got over a thousand new followers. I mean, a standard she gets between four usually about 40,000 is like her average views. So 500,000 is a huge jump for her. And again, so many shares that she got so many new eyeballs.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:01]:
So that is the REP. So when I talked a couple weeks ago about, like, are you guys really sharing stuff you want? How would you fill out an R E P hook? You're a hairstylist, my go to hair color when I'm bored of my hair from a ten year stylist. I don't know. Something like that. The curly hair routine I swear by as a hairstylist and a girl who used to hate her curls, my go to workout regimen as someone who hates to work out from a fitness coach and avid runner. Okay. What is it that they're gonna relate to? So again, twenty dollar screen free Amazon find for all my fellow toddler moms. So right away, it says, oh, she's not just telling me she's also a toddler mom.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:44]:
So again, this, this comes down to writing down those relatable words. So for me, again, to interview jail, watch time. What are other phrases, right, that that my people love? Instagram is obviously reels. Capcut is a great, relatable, catchy word that because people love capcut. Personal, I would say social media strategist, or I would say lazy content creator and expertise, obviously, marketer of twenty years. I can say social media manager for ten plus years. So just think of that. And then what's a tip you can give them? And you've got your R E P reel.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:16]:
But again, I wanna make sure when you are writing these out that you this is a good exercise to really make sure you're talking about things you love. Like Katie talked about something she loves, a protein snack that she makes every day on the couch where she gets five minutes to herself. And you could tell it was organic and real because she's sitting there eating it on the couch. She's not making this up. This isn't just something she saw. This is a snack that she fuels her body with and enjoys eating. And you can tell. Now for people that work in digital, perfect.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:41]:
You could say the three components I add to every Canva or I don't know, maybe something about a Canva hack. If you're a web designer, my favorite Adobe, blah, blah, blah, fonts for the girlies who love blank, tiny under subtitle from a web designer, things like that. You can even start with that hook of you being like pointing to it, pointing to the text bubble classic reel style. If you don't find that too cringey and then you flip the camera and show them My favorite design hack. What's cool, another thing, my favorite guest room color palettes. So if they're in the process of they know they have guests coming this summer, they're right away gonna go, oh, guest room. Yep. I I need I need to spruce up my guest room for people coming this summer.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:12:24]:
So think of things like that that and then how can you use a relatable phrase, whether it's the name of a store, a brand, a phrase that we commonly use, a location? How can you squeeze in that you have a client, a customer? Right? Or what your exact title is, or that you're a busy mom, whatever it is. And then how can you end it with something kind of personal? Maybe you're a fellow x y z or a recovering people pleaser. Okay. So there you go. I hope that helps work on that formula. Look at my reel all about it. It will be in the show notes and use that hook. Listen to that podcast from a couple of weeks ago.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:12:59]:
And last weeks too, it was really good if I do say so myself and work on this hook. And once you've really nailed that formula, do maybe one a week and that'll be your helpful reel for the week, and you've got it. And they'll trust you off the bat. They'll love you off the bat. There you go. Love you, friend. Talk to you next week.